Though virtue ethics has waxed and waned as a theory of morality over two millennia, in recent decades, it has become central to many military’s conceptions of military ethics.
Moral Philosophy as a Force Protection Measure
Membership in the profession of arms is a tightrope walk. Just warriors manage a delicate balance between respecting human life and taking it. This is no new phenomenon, but instead has been a fact about war from the beginning. We judge Achilles, but not for killing Hector; that was his soldierly duty. There was a hope, though, that even in death, Achilles might honor Hector’s life. This was not to be. In defiling Hector’s body, Achilles dehumanized his enemy and fell to one side of the tightrope.
The Coming Storm: Ethics in the Next War
The strategic demands of a great power war with a peer-adversary—the high-end conflict—will inevitably push decision-makers to the pale of that which is ethically permissible. We have seen it in the two great wars of the 20th century. In the next great power war—and one hopes it never comes—western states will put their strategic and operational capabilities to the test. But such a war will also test the moral will of their citizens—the people in whose name the killing and dying will take place.